


Group Project

by Aja, earlgreytea68



Series: Hays Code Love Scene [4]
Category: Shenanigans (Original Universe)
Genre: Backstory, College, Directing, Hooking up, M/M, Pre-Slash, Shenanigans (Original Universe) - Freeform, UST, play rehearsals, the one and only fic not tagged 'alcoholism'
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-10
Updated: 2017-08-10
Packaged: 2018-12-13 16:47:00
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,506
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11764146
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aja/pseuds/Aja, https://archiveofourown.org/users/earlgreytea68/pseuds/earlgreytea68
Summary: “It should feel like some kind of experimental merry-go-round,” Elliot says eagerly.“This seems like the point at which I should suggest caution,” says Jonah.





	Group Project

It’s no secret that Elliot and Jonah have been bonding over their mutual dislike of their Directing III prof, Prof. Wurtzenhauer—Wurtzie for short. It’s an odd enough experience to find themselves on the same side of an argument, for once; but Wurtzie, who runs the Emerson glee club and the alumni theatre guild and seems to be revered among the faculty, has quickly exhausted both of their separate temperaments by oozing a confidence and a smug condescension that is utterly undermined by his general ignorance and incompetence.

“I don’t understand it!” Elliot says to Jonah more than once in the throes of his rampant displeasure. “How can you be civil to him, let alone _nice_?”

“I manage it very easily considering what sort of clout he has on campus,” Jonah replies drolly. “Perhaps you should try considering that as well.”

“Every feeling revolts,” Elliot mutters, and Jonah bites back a smile. The truth is that while Wurtzie _is_ incompetent, laughably so—last week a student brought up a question about using actors as props and set dressing, and through the rambling vagueness of Wurtzie’s answer it became immediately apparent he had no idea what the question really meant and was just bullshitting some sort of answer—he is also the kind of teacher who is the perfect foil for Elliot.

He cares nothing whatsoever about Elliot’s frequently brilliant observations in class, because he’s too dumb to really grasp how insightful are Elliot’s ideas about architectural design in relation to staging, or design aesthetics in relation to character building, for example; but he _does_ care about the fact that Elliot is habitually late to class, and the fact that he’s skipped so many classes—nearly all of them the lecture days—that he’s already reliant on the good graces of Wurtzie not to fail him.

Elliot is so openly contemptuous of Wurtzie at this point that he’s going to have a hard time _not_ failing. This is a frankly absurd state of affairs, because aside from the fact that Elliot has, until now, possessed a nearly perfect grade point average as far as Jonah can tell, and aside from the fact that his earlier directorial professors have all raved about him, they haven’t even made it to mid-terms yet.

Thus it is that when the time comes to co-direct their mid-term project, Jonah immediately cordons off Elliot and makes it clear they’re partnering up whether Elliot likes it or not, because Elliot’s only hope of passing this class is to partner with someone who’s practically guaranteed an A. And while Jonah privately agrees with Elliot that Wurtzie is a complete fool, Wurtzie _loves_ Jonah. So Jonah, for better or for worse, takes it upon himself to commandeer Elliot.

This is how he makes that happen:

“Elliot and I will be partners,” he announces.

“What? No!” says Elliot.

“I’m thinking we can do something Shakespearean,” Jonah continues blithely. “Maybe the tavern scene from 1 Henry IV.”

“I’m not partnering up with you,” says Elliot while Jonah is still talking. “You’ll want to act every scene yourself and insert Jason Robert Brown songs everywhere.”

“No, on second thought, you’re right, there’s no one here good enough to play Falstaff,” Jonah says, barrelling onward. “What about something modern like _The Pillowman_? No, too simple — not the storyline, of course, but the staging. We could always do something comic like _Dancing at Lughnasa_. Yes, I think that would be _perfect._ ”

“No, Jonah, I’m not, we’re not,” Elliot splutters, and then, “Wait, no, you can’t do _Dancing at Lughnasa_ , have you ever even met anyone who’s actually _read_ _Dancing at Lughnasa_?”

“Perhaps we should pick a random play out of a hat,” says Jonah, suppressing a grin at Elliot’s horrified, beautiful face.

So now they’re sitting on the floor of the theatre library stacks, up to their elbows in Samuel French, fighting over scene choices. They’ve been fighting over scene choices for the last hour.

“What about Terrence McNally?” Elliot suggests idly.

Jonah shoots him a glance and answers wryly, “Too many _Rent_ gays,” studying his reaction. Elliot’s nose wrinkles in confusion, and Jonah realizes he probably doesn’t even remember telling Jonah that. Fair enough; it was nearly two years ago.

He lets it go and thumbs through the pile. “ _Lost in Yonkers_ might be nice.”

“Too many people, probably,” says Elliot. “Every play either has too many people for our purposes or like, just two people sitting at desks for two hours.”

“Such is the power of _Love Letters,_ ” says Jonah with a grin. Elliot purses his lips and keeps flipping through plays.

They haggle over whether to do _The Little Foxes_ or something by O’Neill or Albee, and agree that they should probably stay away from older plays and focus on something newer. They argue over whether or not to try to stage a scene from a musical, and finally decide that even though Wurtzie was an ass, it probably won’t do them any good to risk it, given his notorious hatred of any musical theatre composer but Bernstein.

Next they argue vociferously over _How I Learned to Drive_ , which Jonah is for and Elliot is against, which leads to a vehement debate about whether they should be trying to direct plays written by women and people of color or whether they should be prioritizing making sure women and people of color get to direct those plays themselves. It ends when Elliot throws _Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom_ at Jonah and announces that Jonah can go be an oppressive cis white man without him, and Jonah responds that Elliot inherently _is_ an oppressive cis white man, and probably far more inherently oppressive than Jonah just by virtue of being louder and more obnoxious, and Elliot picks up another script to throw at him and then double-takes at it and says, “Hey, what about _Doubt_?” just as a librarian comes over to order them to be quiet.

 _Doubt_ , if not new-ish, at least hails from the 21st century. It has only four characters, and even though nearly the entire play is, in fact, staged with two people sitting at a desk and talking, at least at various points they get up from the desks and walk around a bit. This is enough of a compromise that they’re willing to consider it, given that it can easily be staged using members of their directing class. Jonah has never read it but has always wanted to, and Elliot has seen it staged once and liked it, which is more of a consensus than they’ve been able to arrive at thus far. They flip through their copies and fall silent as they read, until Elliot mutters, “I don’t remember the head nun being this much of a caricature.”

“I’m sure the actress makes a difference,” Jonah says. “Cherry Jones played her on Broadway, after all.”

“Yeah, but we don’t have Cherry Jones,” says Elliot, frowning. “We have a couple of 20-something theatre majors who mostly just want to sing and dance for a living. I’d rather have nuanced writing.”

“This play won a Pulitzer,” Jonah reminds him.

“Pfft,” says Elliot with a dismissive hand-wave. After a few more minutes, he adds, “and Sister James, too, she... she vacillates between a sense of worldliness and a kind of frustrating naivete whenever the script needs her to be in opposition to the head nun.”

Jonah looks up. “You think it’s a forced characterization?”

Elliot bites his lip and thinks, and Jonah takes the moment to watch him openly, instead of from casual, fairly appropriate side-glances. Eliot is concentrated in thought, and Jonah finds himself wondering how often he lets himself be this focused. He suppresses a shiver at the thought. Sitting around mooning over Elliot being still for once is hardly going to get him through the ordeal of actually doing this project.

But then Elliot murmurs carefully, “I think... I don’t really know how to stage a scene between these two people if their opposition to each other isn’t coming from something internal—because how would you express that opposition visually on the stage if it’s pinned to something external and unseen instead of to each other?” and Jonah has to— _has to_ let himself stare at Elliot for one more moment, because who _says_ things like this? What kind of college student goes around thinking about oppositional staging as an expression of character development, let alone a business major who claims to be just taking directing classes for _fun_?

Elliot looks up at him, looking suddenly chagrined that he’s revealed so much uncertainty to Jonah. Jonah says brusquely, “Well, if ambiguity is at the heart of this play then maybe this _is_ something internalized between them. Maybe they’re setting themselves in opposition to each other, not because of some internal character logic but because they simply _want_ to oppose one another.”

Elliot blinks. “So Sister James is naive when it suits her to be because it puts her in opposition to Sister Aloysius.”

“Quite possibly,” Jonah says. “That happens fairly frequently in real life, don’t you think?”

“Not over something this serious, I wouldn’t think,” says Elliot, but then he looks uncertain again.

“I wouldn’t be so sure,” says Jonah, smiling thinly. “Human nature is pretty willfully obstinate.” He can’t resist adding, “I mean, you set yourself in opposition to me every chance you get, and that’s only for fun.”

Elliot looks up at him sharply. “No, I don’t,” he says, but his frown has deepened.

“Hmm.” Jonah raises an eyebrow at him, and Elliot, predictably, scowls and huffs and says, “Hey, if you want to do this project with someone so _oppositional,_  knock yourself out, George Foreman.” He flips the script shut and gets to his knees, ready to stand. And it probably is time for Jonah to head home, but—

“It could be faith,” he says. “That oppositional external force the two nuns are framed against in their scenes together. If they each represent different facets of doubt, then they’re juxtaposed not just against each other but against something heavenly. You could have fun staging that, surely.”

Elliot freezes and studies him. “Like _Winter Light_ ,” he says at last.

“Like what?”

“It’s a Bergman film,” Elliot says. “It’s gorgeous, really rich black and white imagery. It’s about a priest who’s losing his faith, and so to get that idea across, Bergman is always framing him against these harsh angles and, like, jagged things. Like the windows have crossbars on them, and the titular light is harsh and piercing, and it’s full of contrasts and shadows. And the main character kind of, I feel like he sort of staggers around under the weight of it all.” He looks down at the script again. “We could have something like that, maybe.”

“Characters staggering around?”

“Characters who seem at sea,” Elliot murmurs. “They’re not static, they’re being jostled against their subconscious opposition to the faith they’re losing, and their conscious opposition to each other. Maybe that plays out like restlessness, some sort of constant movement.”

“I think that sounds intriguing,” Jonah says, sincerely, and Elliot blinks as if Jonah has just surprised him.

“It’ll probably look stupid onstage, though,” he says.

Jonah stands and brushes off his knees. He holds out a hand to Elliot and pulls him to his feet when Elliot takes it. “Only one way to find out,” he says, bending to put away the pile of scripts they’ve amassed.

Elliot stoops to help. “Why did you ask me to partner with you?” he says cautiously. “For real?”

Jonah sends him a raised eyebrow. “You know Wurtzie hates me,” Elliot persists. “He’s liable to give us both Fs.”

Jonah thinks about answering him with some flippant, easily brushed-aside answer. He thinks about giving him a version of the whole truth—that Jonah is trying to keep him from failing—but discounts that as something that would only annoy Elliot.

He settles, eventually, on a small sliver of the truth, though it feels far too much like opening a door Jonah tries to keep firmly shut.

“I think you’re talented,” he says. And then, because Elliot is holding himself warily apart from this statement, he adds, “when you bother to be,” just to make sure things don’t get _too_ uncomfortable.

Elliot doesn’t immediately react, however; instead he finishes re-shelving his part of the pile and leans against the bookshelf.

“I don’t always disagree with you,” he says.

“True,” Jonah answers after a moment. He adds dryly, “and I live for those rare exceptions.”

Elliot scowls again. “I’m going to go back to my dorm and make notes,” he says.

“Or, if you like,” Jonah says without really thinking, “we could continue being oppositional over dinner.”

It comes out sounding like a come-on, and Elliot’s eyes widen for a fraction of an instant. “Over the script, I mean,” Jonah adds smoothly.

“Oh,” Elliot said, unclenching just a little. “No. I mean—I think I want to mull it over for a while.”

It’s strange, Jonah thinks, how... _subdued_ the theatre makes Elliot. Most people come to the stage to let out their inner exhibitionist, while Elliot tucks his away for a while and turns serious. It’s fascinating.

“Suit yourself,” he says. “I’ll text you when I’m free.”

Jonah doesn’t actually have a chance to text Elliot, because the next day in the Paramount Elliot marches up to him and says, “I think we should stage the scene where Cherry Jones lays it out for Father Flynn and Sister James finally loses her shit.”

“The only scene with all three of them together,” Jonah says.

“It should feel like some kind of experimental merry-go-round,” Elliot says eagerly.

“This seems like the point at which I should suggest caution,” says Jonah.

“They’re physically whirling as the accusations whirl between them,” Elliot continues.

“Or not, because this isn’t the Fringe,” says Jonah.

“You want them to just stand around in stock poses?” Elliot folds his arms and strikes a very fitting stock pose himself.

“Well, I don’t know,” says Jonah. “Shall we consult the script?” He takes Elliot’s and carefully examines the cover. “It says, ‘ _Doubt: A Parable_ ,’ not, ‘ _Doubt: A Ballet_ ’ or ‘ _Doubt: A Series of Instagram Cinemagraphs._ ’”

“If the whole thing’s about doubt anyway, then who the hell cares if we add in some interpretive movement?” Elliot snaps. “We could be doubting the fundamentals of scene staging.”

“During a project in which we’re supposed to be demonstrating that we understand the fundamentals of scene staging.”

“We show we understand them by subverting them!” Elliot yelps. “You have no vision!”

“I do, however, have an A in this class,” says Jonah smugly, and Elliot actually gnashes his teeth and stomps off.

That night Jonah goes home with one of his regular hookups, an endlessly snarky creative writing major named Jonathan who, when he’s not joking about starting a ring of Literary Jonathans in Boston, gives head with luxurious finesse.

At some point during the evening Jonathan licks his way up Jonah’s torso and says blandly, “You’re usually way more vocal than this. Anything on your mind?” Jonah, who’s been completely caught up in his thoughts, pulls him in for a slightly embarrassed kiss.

“Homework,” he says dryly, palming Jonathan’s ass.

Jonathan snorts. “You’re ridiculous. I’ll give you something to work on from home.”

“With lines like that I’m surprised you haven’t already won a Pulitzer,” Jonah says, but he sprawls out obligingly as Jonathan sits on his cock.

Jonathan rolls his eyes and goes at it. “I’m just saying, whoever he is, he’s not the one you’re fucking right now.”

Jonah hums appreciatively and runs his hand up Jonathan’s waist, lazily thrusting his hips. Objectively, Jonah has shagged more than his share of gorgeous boys with smart mouths. It’s completely inexplicable that he’s currently lying here with one of them tightening his muscles around his cock and still somehow thinking about the absurd Elliotness of staging a play about a religious crisis as an existential carnival ride.

Elliot, upon meeting Jonathan, would proceed to write up a bingo card and systematically cross it off. Namedrops all the Brooklyn Jonathans, check; loves anything by David Foster Wallace and Dave Eggers, check; hates sci-fi unless it’s by Neal Stephenson, check; hates politics and avoids social media, check; McSweeneys reference, and Bingo.

He wonders if some of Elliot’s disdain has dripped onto him, but brushes it aside; he closes his eyes and arches up, and suddenly it’s Elliot whose waist he’s grasping, the slim taper of his hip bones beneath his thumbs; it’s Elliot’s heat he’s invading, Elliot’s thighs trembling as he rides Jonah, and this is the door he’s slammed shut being kicked wide open, and it’s a bad, stupid, unwise idea, but Jonah doesn’t stop thinking about it as he pulls Jonathan down and kisses him sloppily, pushes him over onto his stomach and fucks him until Jonathan comes with a shout.

Elliot wouldn’t shout, he thinks ruefully as he buries himself. He knows, somehow, exactly how Elliot would sound when Jonah takes him apart, and the knowledge is enough to bring him over the edge.

  


They ask their friend Beatrice, who’s a theatre major, to be the head nun, and ask one of their fellow classmates, Aisha, who’s basically a cool would-be filmmaker who likes hanging out in their directing sections, to be Sister James. Jonah reading the part of Father Flynn is easier than getting yet another person involved, so he volunteers.

He can tell that Elliot is oddly disquieted by the prospect of Jonah acting in their scene, and he’s not sure why. He doesn’t have a chance to ask, because after the initial fleeting moment of discomfort Elliot agrees to the idea readily enough. That’s probably because Jonah acting in the scene cuts down the number of people he’ll have to corral; Elliot is probably already annoyed that he has to work with three whole actors instead of just having the stage and a bunch of poseable mannequins all to himself.

“This play is fucked up,” Aisha greets them at their first rehearsal. Jonah and Elliot exchange glances; Elliot looks rather pleased by this assessment, which Jonah knows is probably a huge red flag.

“Well, it is set in the ‘60s,” Beatrice says. “The part where Mrs. Muller says her husband beats her son and nobody immediately calls Child Protective Services, for instance. That struck me as being indicative of the time period.”

Aisha snorts. “And, like. Nobody once offers to get this kid some therapy? Oh, and the poor black woman comes up with the most morally repugnant position of all the women and it’s supposed to be a testament to how poor and broken down she is by the system. You can totally tell this shit was written by a white dude.”

Elliot looks delighted. “Right?” He turns to Jonah. “Maybe we should do that scene instead.”

“I think we’re _fine_ not attempting to direct the most problematic scene in the play,” Jonah says with a deliberate smile.

Aisha laughs. “Ya’ll totally wanted me to do this because of that bit, didn’t you.”

“No, not at all,” says Jonah, just as Elliot says, “Well, yeah, because in theory if we were directing this we’d want another actress of color to cancel out the idea that the only characters of color in the play are powerless abuse victims with no agency over their own lives.”

Jonah blinks at him. Elliot shrugs. “Or what he said,” Jonah finishes.

All goes well until they actually get into the reading.

“Can we back up and try that line read differently?” Elliot asks Beatrice. They’re barely a minute into the scene. “That bit about the nuns falling like dominos—she’s subtly mocking him there, don’t you think?”

“I think she’s making small talk while she waits for Sister James to arrive,” Beatrice says blankly.   

“Yes, but she’s all, ‘nuns fall,’ in that snide way,” Elliot says. “Like she’s implying he has no idea what goes on in his own parish.”

“Elliot,” Jonah says gently, and sends him a look that tries to suggest that Elliot let his actors interpret the lines the way they want to. Elliot feels his glance and makes an abortive, fidgety movement with his script before adjusting to sit cross-legged in his chair, as though he’s physically tempering himself. Jonah smiles before he can help himself.

“I do think she’s hardening herself to him from the moment he walks in the door,” Beatrice says.

Elliot beams at her. “Yes!” he says. “Try again.”

They try it again.

And again.

The third time they make it as far as Aisha’s line, “Not that there’s anything wrong with sugar” — almost a whole entire page in the script, hallelujah — before Elliot derails them.

“Try saying it more like, ‘Not that there’s _anything_ wrong with sugar,’” he says, “instead of, ‘Not that there’s anything wrong with _sugar._ ”

Aisha stares at him blankly. Then she says, pointedly from where Jonah’s sitting, “‘Not that there’s anything _wrong_ with sugar.’”

Elliot frowns. He opens his mouth.

“I’m taking a break, anyone want anything from the lounge?” Jonah says merrily.

Aisha throws him a weary but grateful glance. "Yes, please," she says. "Break me off a cup of coffee with—" she pauses— "extra _sugar."_

“I’m going to take a break, too,” says Beatrice. “I need to call my roommate.”

“I’ll join you,” Aisha says. “I, too, need to call your roommate.”

Elliot has noticed none of this because he’s frowning at the script and scribbling notes down in his notebook — or rather writing indecipherable directions on the makeshift stage he’s drawn there. Jonah chances a look. He doesn’t appear to have drawn them all in a carousel-like formation, but who knows where they’ll end up by the time this is through.

“You want anything?” Jonah asks him. Elliot murmurs something unintelligible and waves a hand at him, which Jonah takes to mean that he wants hazelnut coffee with cream and no sugar and one of those little gummy bear things which Elliot pretends to be appalled by but secretly loves. This, Jonah has noticed, is a common theme with Elliot.

“About this scene,” he says, while Elliot is still blinking in disbelief at his gummy bears. “You know that you can’t be successful as a director if you don’t trust your actors.”

“It’s not that,” Elliot says. “They’re great. But they only just got the script, they haven’t spent the last week with it like you and I have.”

“So we should both try and figure out how to guide them while still letting them make their own choices as actors,” Jonah says.

Elliot takes a sip of his hazelnut coffee and winces. He gives Jonah a flat look over his cup. “You’re an actor,” he says.

“Yes, but every director will tell you that as well.” Elliot worries his lower lip.

“Maybe you could demonstrate the kind of interplay you’re going for instead of trying to spell it out for them,” Jonah suggests, because if he knows Elliot, one frustratingly imperfect scene readthrough will get him to back off.

“You mean read with you?” Elliot’s frown deepens. “I don’t think—”

“It’s a good way to get your point across,” Jonah says. And, well, it is. He’s not wrong.

But also he just wants to read with Elliot.

Probably Jonah is a complete fool.

Elliot, still looking wary, starts with the bit where the head nun begins ranting about the Christmas service. It’s only half a page of dialogue, ostensibly about Christmas music, but between her and the father, whom she believes to have molested one of the altar boys, it’s a loaded exchange full of pointed statements and cryptic assumptions on her part and bafflement—or at least apparent bafflement—on the part of the father.

Over the course of the discussion—which Elliot, with his crisp enunciation and cold declarations rapidly makes clear isn’t about Christmas music at all—Jonah feels himself growing naturally defensive. It’s his job to believe in his character, after all, and whatever his guilt or innocence, it’s absurd, the way the head nun has railroaded him, the way she uses flimsy pretexts to insult him while hiding the truth from herself—

—and suddenly, in the middle of their exchange, Jonah understands why Elliot is so drawn to this play, why he wants so badly to have all three of the actors in some sort of whirling shifting carousel of ambiguity. That’s what his brain is like every day of the world, so full of judgments and misguided half-truths and attempts to avoid confronting his own feelings—

“How fortunate,” Elliot says, intent on Jonah’s face, and Jonah matches his accusatory tone, and they’re not even looking at the script anymore, and when Jonah finally reaches his breaking point and snaps, “ _Intolerance,_ ” at Elliot, Elliot doesn’t bother to continue, just stares at him.

Jonah waits for another moment, but Elliot says, suddenly awkward, “I—that’s fine. I don’t want to—it’s fine.” He takes a step back, and blinks uncertainly down at the script as though he’s never seen it before.

A burst of applause cuts through the sudden tension, and Jonah turns to find Beatrice and Aisha watching them.

“Nice job,” says Aisha.

Jonah says casually, “We were just trying to get a read on how we wanted that section to go—it’s a little tricky.”

Beatrice looks between them and says blankly, “You want us to play it as though the straight widowed nun and the gay priest secretly want to—”

“Technically we don’t know that he’s gay,” Jonah interjects smoothly, because it’s imperative that she not finish that sentence.

Jonah’s real goal of getting Elliot to back off is a success; Elliot sits down and buries his head in his notes and lets all three of them run lines however they want to for the rest of the night. Jonah knows him well enough to know that he’s weirded out, but not really well enough to know why. He’d never be so gauche as to presume Elliot had suddenly realized, in the middle of reading a speech between a nun and a priest, that he wants Jonah.  

As they proceed, however, Elliot’s reluctance to look at him reminds Jonah that Elliot has never seemed to like watching Jonah act. It occurs to him that possibly Elliot avoids it for the same reason that he seems to prefer to flit around Jonah rather than be pinned down and forced to interact with him like a normal human being: it brings him uncomfortably close to things he’s not ready to admit.

That’s it, then, he thinks: Elliot won’t ever admit how he feels, or even that he’s close to feeling something, and they will go around and around this maypole until—

—well, if he’s being honest, until either something breaks between them, or until Nicholas finally makes a move on Elliot himself.

This is a ludicrous train of thought. Jonah follows it anyway.

He imagines all the possible scenarios that could play out from here. He could corner Elliot after this rehearsal is over. He could finally let himself have this. Elliot is shaken enough at the moment that Jonah could probably break through to him; he could pull Elliot to him and end three years of torture, of wanting and trying not to want. He could finally taste Elliot’s mouth and put an end to this _ridiculous_ charade.

But if he did that, he’s afraid that Elliot would shatter. Elliot has never been able to take being ambushed by his own feelings; Jonah knows this. If he kissed Elliot now, it would be an ambush, and if Elliot wasn’t completely, one hundred percent enthusiastic, it would be so much more than just a bad kiss.

Jonah’s not stupid; he knows Elliot’s weird dance of sublimated flirtation and sniping and avoidance is all about his fear, his wariness of how overtly sexual Jonah can be.  If Jonah was rough and commanding, or god forbid, if he frightened Elliot, it would confirm all Elliot’s fears about physical relationships and crushes in general. It would make him that much more afraid and wary.  Jonah would hate himself.

But what if Elliot _didn’t_ shatter? What if they went slowly? What if Elliot wanted him back; what if he was responsive and eager and everything Jonah wanted?

Jonah already knows where this scenario ends up. It would be perfect for a moment—maybe even a few moments—and then those moments would pass and Elliot would still be Elliot, still sporting his oblivious self-centeredness, his stubbornness, his penchant to railroad everyone, his undeniable immature streak. Not to mention his permanent hang-up over Nicholas.

No. This scenario ends with Jonah getting burned. He’s known that from the start. It’s why he’s stayed away, why he’s kept himself from going down this path for so long. Elliot is permanently off-limits. Jonah decided that long ago and nothing has changed.

Except for the fact that lately every time Elliot’s eyes land on Jonah’s face Jonah feels his resolve crumbling. Except that the thought that maybe it wouldn’t be so bad, maybe things might actually be okay between them, things might actually be _incredible_ , keeps creeping into his head.

Ludicrous.

A sudden, sharp memory of his mother’s voice floats through his brain: _The problem with falling for other people is that sooner or later they disappoint you._ She’d told him this the day back in junior high when he tentatively confessed his first real crush to her, a sweet boy named Joshua. Just be prepared, she’d said. Don’t get your hopes up.

He shoves the image and the memory of her aside, along with the irony that no boyfriend has ever disappointed him more than his own family. He allows himself a single moment to feel the loss, the fact that he has no family left to talk to about this, and then he shoves that aside, too. The problem of whether to let himself love a total disaster of a person is relatively minor, and thanks to his family he’s better equipped to let the dream of Elliot go than he otherwise would be. Maybe he will; he undoubtedly should. Just... let Elliot go.

“Hey, space cowboy,” Elliot barks, and Jonah realizes he’s completely zoned out. “Where were you?” Elliot demands.

Mapping out the rest of our lives apart like some kind of inverse stalker, Jonah doesn’t say. “Sorry,” he says. “You were saying?”

Elliot, apparently having recovered from his moment of imbalance, launches into a description of how he wants to stage them, and Jonah, half-listening, suddenly has such a blindingly obvious idea that he nearly laughs out loud: he could take Elliot on a date.

Only it couldn’t be a date the way normal people have dates; that would probably freak Elliot out too much, because when it comes to sex, or courtship of any kind, Elliot is sort of like a skittish cat who’s afraid everything around him is secretly a garden hose. It would have to be something that would allow them to hang out together, alone, while still affording Elliot plausible deniability if he wasn’t ready. Really, Jonah realizes, a scheme like this is the only way to ever gauge if Elliot ever _will_ be ready. Jonah should probably be more embarrassed than he is that the idea is only just now occurring to him, but honestly Jonah doesn’t do dates and can’t imagine why he would ever _need_ to in ordinary circumstances. Obviously this isn’t an ordinary circumstance; it won’t even be an ordinary date.

So after they wrap up for the evening, Jonah remarks casually, “By the way, I found a copy of that movie you were talking about. _Winter Light_.”  He hasn’t yet, of course, but it’s probably on YouTube. Elliot freezes in the middle of gathering up his stuff and looks up at him warily, on alert like a hound trying to catch the scent of a scheme. But Jonah is a very good actor, and he likes to think he has a naturally innocent sort of face.

“You watched Bergman?” Elliot asks.

“Well, not yet,” Jonah confesses. “I thought we could go over it together. For the purposes of staging the scene.”

Elliot hesitates, his wariness of Jonah clearly warring with his love of Scandinavian art film. Eventually, the latter wins out, as Jonah knew it must.

“Cool,” Elliot says finally. “Let me know when you’re free.” He turns back to his bookbag.

“How about tomorrow night at my place? Seven o’clock?” Jonah says, so there’ll be no mistake about the implications of the evening.

Elliot doesn’t seem to register anything significant about the time, though—perhaps because he goes on roughly about as many dates as Jonah, Jonah thinks with amusement. “Sure,” he says. “See you then.”

The next evening is a Friday, so Jonah spends half the afternoon after his morning classes straightening and cleaning his apartment, which he shares with a listless biology major named Linda who’s rarely home, and who spends most of her time when she is either asleep or high. It’s not exactly a social destination, but she pays the rent, they get along well enough, and she never complains about his endless series of sleepovers.

He doesn’t go overboard. He microwaves popcorn, chills a bottle of wine, and makes sure they’ve got vodka and cranberry juice in case Elliot wants a cocktail. He doesn’t even bother to change out of his school clothes—he’s wearing jeans and a button-up, so he throws a cardigan over it and calls it a day.

Really, his expectations for the evening are perfectly low, all things considered.

When Elliot turns up promptly at 7:00 in one of his pristine white dress shirts and chinos, Jonah actually thinks, for half an instant, that they might be on the same page, and his surprise is almost palpable.

But then Nicholas pops his head around the corner, and Elliot says, “Hey!” brightly. “I brought Nicholas along, he was bored because he has no social life.”

And Jonah is an excellent actor, so he grins, “Who among us does?” and moves to microwave an extra bowl of popcorn.

He likes Nicholas. He and Nicholas are friends. And the purpose of this evening was always to determine whether Elliot would be open to exploring whatever lies between them, and Jonah most emphatically has his answer, so it’s fine. Really.

Besides, with Nicholas there Jonah can just serve them all IPAs and save the rosé for a better occasion.

He doesn’t own a TV, so the three of them wind up crowded around his laptop trying to read grainy YouTube subtitles. It would have been fine with two people; three is obviously a bit awkward, and the choice of movie—droll Swedish actors questioning religion—is even more awkward; but Nicholas just smiles at Jonah over his beer and acts like he’s having the time of his life. Since he’s here with Elliot, who clearly loves this film for obscure aesthetic reasons known only to himself, he probably is.

Elliot sits sandwiched between them, occasionally nudging Jonah to comment on some part of the staging or the set design. Jonah does his best to find it all fascinating in an abstract and educational sort of way, but he can’t help registering the way Elliot looks frequently back and forth between Jonah and Nicholas as if he’s on tenterhooks to make sure their opinions are the right ones. When he’s not trying to make sure they’re both watching the film, his eyes are glued to it; he sits with his hands clasped in front of his chin, completely absorbed and giving every appearance of being completely sucked into whatever deep internal conflicts are happening onscreen. When Jonah remarks about half an hour into the film that Bergman is perpetually staging his lead actor in the center of the frame surrounded by blank walls, emptiness on all sides, Elliot turns to him and says eagerly, “It’s effective because it’s so simple, right? But, like, visually stark.”

“We can’t get that effect from a bare stage,” Jonah tells him.

Elliot shakes his head and impulsively pauses the film, probably so he can gesture around his point more emphatically. “We get, like, the desk and that’s it, right? I was thinking we could frame it and Beatrice in the center and have you and Aisha spread out on opposite sides of her so she’s sort of trapped alone in the center with a lot of blank space around her.”

“Won’t that give the impression the head nun’s office is actually bigger than it probably would be in reality?”

“It’s maybe distorted, but, like.” Elliot shrugs. “Don’t stage sets always feel larger than life?”

Jonah glances up at Nicholas, who’s sipping his beer idly and smiling like he has no idea what Elliot is talking about but is pleased that it sounds smart anyway. The absurdity of it—the entire evening, the fact that he’d been looking _forward_ to this, the fact that Elliot so clearly never saw this night as anything but a chance to drag his best friend along to watch depressing foreign films, the fact Elliot thinks that’s a good way to spend a Friday evening, the fact that both he _and_ Nicholas are essentially third wheels to Elliot and Elliot’s scheme du jour—it all hits Jonah abruptly, and he laughs.

“Why do you like this film?” he asks. “Is it just because it’s all...” he waves a hand at his laptop. “Gorgeously done in black and white?”

Elliot looks at him. “Ingrid Thulin is a complete genius,” he says. “You should watch all of the films she made with Bergman. And don’t get me started on Max Von Sydow.”

Now it’s Nicholas’s turn to laugh, as though Elliot’s just revealed something fascinating about himself, and for all Jonah knows he has. Elliot rounds on him. “And you, you’d love _Scenes From A Marriage_ , that’s the most you movie ever.”

“You are the only person I know who’d decide the most me movie ever is a Swedish arthouse film,” says Nicholas, and Elliot huffs and turns back to Jonah.

“It’s so tense,” he says. “So little is happening on screen but you can tell these characters are so... I don’t know, so _full_ of things.” He frowns. “And the main character is kind of a total asshole but also... he still manages to come off like someone you’d know and put your trust in and feel sorry for, in real life.” His voice drops. “The first time I saw this film I hated it, but then I couldn’t stop thinking about it for days and days.”

Jonah is never prepared for the way Elliot can just... switch from artifice to sincerity.

“We all have movies like that,” he says gently. “Mine is _Happy Together_.”

Elliot looks vaguely impressed. “I can see that,” he says after a moment. “That’s, like. The most depressing take on relationships you could possibly be drawn to, though,” he adds, as though he hasn’t just finished praising a film where all emotional connection is portrayed as essentially hollow and meaningless.

“Well,” Jonah offers, reduced to stating the obvious, “Relationships often end up just that way—two people in love but inherently unsuited for each other.” Nicholas looks over at him and their eyes meet. Jonah wonders what he’s thinking.

“Like any of us would know,” Elliot says, oblivious to the sudden strange mood shift.

“Hey, Jonah,” Nicholas says pleasantly, “You happen to have another?” He gestures at his beer.

“By all means,” says Jonah, aware that this is Nicholas’s attempt to change the subject before it veers into uncomfortable territory. Possibly, he thinks, it’s Nicholas trying to spare him painful memories of his family.

Elliot never seems to remember that aspect of Jonah’s life, which is fine, honestly; Nicholas seems to tiptoe around it, which is sweet for all it’s occasionally more annoying than Elliot’s obliviousness.

For all they’re inseparable, they couldn’t be more unlike one another, Elliot and Nicholas. Jonah finds himself wondering, not for the first time, how well they really know each other.

He retrieves more beer and they watch the rest of the movie in relative silence. When it’s over, and they’ve discussed it a bit, and tentatively mapped out ideas for staging their scene, Elliot yawns and says, “Shame we couldn’t see it in a cinema. The black and white art design is really stunning, it gets lost on smaller screens.”

Jonah, without quite understanding why, goes on alert. He is also never prepared for the way Elliot can switch from sincerity to artifice, even though he’s seen it happen often enough, but he’s suddenly sure Elliot is up to something.

“I’ve got a decent-sized TV, if you ever just really need to experience the full effects of all that Swedish art film cinematography,” Nicholas says indulgently, with an eyeroll for Jonah’s benefit.

Elliot says distantly, “That’s right, we’ll be roommates,” and then, with every appearance of innocence, blinks as though he’s just realized something, and says, “Hey, Jonah. You haven’t made up your mind about staying here yet, have you?”

Jonah narrows his eyes. “In this apartment, you mean?”

Elliot shrugs grandly. “We need a third roommate. Blake decided to stay at his parents’ instead. So if you’re free...” He slings an arm around Nicholas, who is also blinking at Elliot like he doesn’t know what to make of him. “I mean, we all get along _so_ well, don’t you agree?”

Jonah stares at him. This entire evening was never a date, or even a casual hangout. It was an _audition._  Elliot was _auditioning_ him.

He looks incredulously to Nicholas, who shoots him a grin. “Sure,” he says. “That’d be cool if you’re into it.”

Of course it would, Jonah thinks ruefully, wondering how Nicholas can so effortlessly enable Elliot as though he honestly thinks all Elliot’s ideas are good ones instead of clear disasters waiting to happen.

And Elliot—Elliot always seems to unseat Jonah with so little effort. How is it even _possible_ that Jonah spends this much time being on his guard around Elliot, preparing himself mentally for all Elliot’s onslaughts on his (admittedly ridiculous) emotions, only for Elliot to saunter around discombobulating him without even trying?

“I hadn’t planned on going anywhere,” Jonah says, momentarily stunned out of his typical aplomb. He gathers himself and plasters on a smile. “My roommate isn’t exactly social but we get along well.”

Elliot waves his hand airily, as though he’s waving away the existence of Jonah’s roommate. “You should live with us,” he says. “We could get somewhere nice and have all our friends over and you’d have a bigger space to practice acting or whatever and we’d make Nicholas cook for us and we could watch foreign films and save on car fare and it’d be fun.”

“I don’t actually cook all that well,” Nicholas inserts. “And technically, only you and Jonah will save on car fare because I’ll be at BU.” Elliot handwaves all this away, too.

“Pleeeeease,” he says to Jonah.

Jonah tries to imagine _living_ with Elliot, being face to face with all that erratic energy and quixotic need for attention and randomized brilliance and, just, _Elliot_ , on a daily basis. And with Nicholas there, too—Nicholas who likes to keep Elliot in his back pocket, but who has, as far as Jonah can tell, never made a move on him despite all of Elliot’s loudly mixed signals.

Jonah had thought that tonight would determine once and for all whether Elliot was remotely ready to acknowledge the strange sublimated attraction he feels for Jonah. And instead, Elliot has acknowledged it in the most backwards manner imaginable. _Roommates._

“I’ll think about it,” Jonah says, because that’s the only possible answer under the circumstances. But Elliot grins at him like he’s just given in, because in Elliot’s worldview a maybe is practically a yes, and Jonah says again, firmly, “I’ll _think_ about it. No promises.”

Elliot looks at him, then, and suddenly, ever so slightly, he shivers.

Jonah’s throat goes dry, and he thinks: _Fuck_.

  
  


They get an A on their scene. Of course.

They move into the Eggplant in June. The summer stretches before them, and beyond that, senior year; and against his better judgment, Jonah finds himself looking forward to the days ahead, and looking forward to their odd, probably deeply unwise living arrangement, and looking forward to Elliot. It’s not the worst decision he could make, living with Elliot and Nicholas. One way or the other, he’s convinced, the whole situation will resolve itself. Elliot will have to, eventually— _surely—_ make a choice between Nicholas or Jonah.

And who knows? He might actually even choose Jonah.

After all, their lease is a full twelve months.

Anything could happen.


End file.
